Thursday, December 22, 2011

While in 2011 my blogging frequency was greatly reduced. My activity in EvE was actually pretty busy with as many as 30 hours a week being logged. I shifted gears from PvP dreams back to the life of the carebear. More specifically I began to start to build capital ships and acquire the BPOs that go along with it. While I may not have all the BPOs I wanted to at this point, I have enough that Orca and Charon builds are BPC cost free at this point. That's some 14 BN ISK worth of BPOs, which is not insignificant considering I make all that ISK in game while in highsec. I am not a trader and don't really run missions all that much. So the bulk of the ISK was made through mining, ship building, and PI stuffs. So as a whole I am happy with the year.

This year I was fortunate to be able to Ice Mine a lot while working remotely in my RL job. I was clear to make it a semi-afk task that was not disruptive to my RL work schedule. Using a chime timer, 2 PCs connected to a single keyboard and mouse with "synergy", and the layout of my home office. I was able to mine as much as 1500 blocks of Ice in the average work day. This netted me between 100-200M+ ISK a day with the fluctuation of Ice prices and the amount of risk I wanted to place my fleet in. It sparked the addition of a 3rd and 4th account to my EvE addiction. These accounts also opened up a Jump Freighter pilot and a potential to reach 60 PI planets. It also allowed me to start to free up Zombinutz and allow him to once again dream more of PvP.

In the ship building area Sonofbraben is able to build anything from a drone to a Dreadnought this year. Including 3/4 race T2 ships up to Jump Freighters with Amarr being the last hurdle there. I got his Ice refining maxed, his mining maxed, and added a T2 PvP Neut Domi and a PvE rail Mega fit to his "can fly properly" list. I maxed out his R&D agents to 6 jobs and completed standings with Lai Dai for level 4 R&D agents. I got him to 9.6 with Caldari navy and 5.2 with caldari State. Allowing me to anchored POS in 0.5 caldari Highsec systems. I added a whole list of remote rep and drone skills to his docket as well.

Zombinutz spent a good amount of his life in an Orca this year. Which is a pretty sad confession of a 32M SP PvP trained Pilot. I did however boost a lot of gunnery skills this past year, train all Missile types to T2 level IV and a lot of supporting Missile skills to IV. I achieved shield reinforcement elite and armor reinforment improved. I traded my HAM Drake for a 425MM Hurricane for PvP and my raven for a navy Scorp for PvE. I also finally got my first real solo Kill. I also did my first highsec Mackinaw gank as well. LOL!

Healthcare for Space Hermits saw some changes this year. In and out of alliances and coalitions. Members coming and going both from the Corp. and the game. I made some new friends and saw some old ones retire. Now we sit in an alliance again with some folks who like it simple and fun. We have some great members and some fun projects. We remain a Highsec Indy based corp. However we are poking about in LowSec for Industry and some interest in small gang PvP. I logged out one Friday with no plans of WH operations and logged in on a Monday to find one of my directors dropped 1.2BN ISK into a C2. So we are in the WH game I guess. Our Alliance has ins to 0.0 space and we are starting to get requests to build a lot more capital ships. We even had a NYX build request but lacked the 0.0 facilities required. The Alliance had all the mats on hand and a good swag of the BPOs. If anyone is looking for a indy corp. In the lonetrek area look us up.

It's not the most exciting year. I could have made more ISK and branched down a lot of different paths. Yet I am happy with 2011. 2012 has a lot of new ventures in the works and honestly if nothing changes and I do the exact same stuff I did in 2011. I'll be happy and content in my own little EvE life.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

It's late on a Saturday night around 11:30pm local. Not late by some standards, but late enough that I find it odd to be blogging. Yesterday was a long day in the real world. I was at the work grind fighting technology fires for 26 hours straight. I mined some ice in that time as I do as a back ground task to work. Some listen to music, others surf the web, for me I drag and drop 12 blocks of ice every 211 seconds as my mental stimulus at work. I spend 10+ hours a day actively working for my company and skip lunch breaks most days. I think I can afford an extra drag and drop here and there. At least I am not smoking for 10M every hour, or taking 2 hour lunch breaks, or talking to chuck by the water cooler for half the day.

I've just logged on for a "quick" shuffle of reactions and to check fuel levels etc. Seems like the few weeks initially estimated to cut over to the new fuel blocks is more like 6 weeks. This is cool. It means I go back to running my towers and fueling them based on CPU and Power usage for a bit longer. Less Ice to mine for fuel, more for profit.

I am reacting the materials required for the T2 parts for a Rhea. With a few towers and associated reactors (saving grid for guns and a few moon harvs) It's a slow process but one that requires little time feeding. The new online/offline times have made it SO much better for managing a reaction farm. Removing the fuel costs from the towers through a 30 planet PI farm (ran in 3 day cycles, hauled once a week) and semi afk Ice mining while working. I've gotten it down to about 3BN for the build cost for the Rhea. Give or take. That's 50% of current market and includes all BPCs (I own the T2 BPOs, and a few of the BPOs for the Charon), rare minerals, and moon minerals to react into the compounds to make the Rhea. Mining all the trit to iso my self. It's a 5-6 week process, but hey I can make ~3BN with most of it just being putting stuff in a reactor and letting it churn.

The corp. ticks along with a few new folks joining. Another 4 account mining nut like myself joined up and his mate who is a new eve player seeking PvP. Alliance members split off to form a 0.0 PvP corp. Have a 60 day trial that's going well. Giving us all the opportunity to break off and go play in Null. I've got too much respect for those trying to make a go of it to bounce in and out. At least until they are vetted with the alliance they joined.

Some plans to expand our operations to lowsec in 2012. A Rorqual is in the works and should be built in about 15 days. Opens a lot of doors like our first Rhea did as we have fully trained pilots for both now. So some more time poking around lowsec for quiet backwater systems that the piwates don;t visit much is on the docket as well.

We are pondering some WH fun with the new exciting PI taxes. One of the lowsec systems I have a POS in, the locals ripped out all the customs offices and set the tax to 10% to match highsec. So that's nice and there are some good planets out that way. I might drop a PI alt out there.

I''ve almost closed the blog a few times because of inactivity, but I am starting to dig deeper into industry and seeking rarer minerals. It might prove for some more posts of interest. Also VERY happy with crucible and all the goodies. Been playing with gank Naga with zomb. Fun stuff.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Hello again! It's been a long time since my last post. Seems to be a trend but I do have some news.

Project rhea is still on going, but a new and wealthy Corp. Member purchased one to help with the building of 2. I've been using it move stuff about and I have to tell you. It's a blast to right click and select jump and be on the other side of a region. Truly opens up new possibilities for me as a player, let alone for the corp and alliance.

HCSH has also set up some small moon mining endeavors to which the rhea helps no end in fueling and getting goods back to manufacturing and market. The moon mining and associated other activities have halved the build cost of all T2 ships. On the 2 rhea builds it will save us 6 BN alone. Worth a few large towers, some ice mining and a few extra PI alts.

PvP wise I am rapidly growing irate at myself for making ZombiNutz a Orca Pilot. I've been refining my gunnery skills and 'cane fit since my 8:1 encounter in lowsec. November 28th- December 3rd I plan to put the tweaks and training to the test. More to come here.

Like wise I have an in to go back out to Null sec. This time I have better logistics and a lot more capital behind me. It's a deviation to the master plan, but frankly I need a change.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Over the few years I've played EvE. I've blogged about PvP and getting my carebear paws bloody. A tale of 5 dead rifters etc. Other than some basic 0.0 gate gamps (both ends of the stick) and some highsec 1 Vs 1s my PvP experience has been limited.

Anyhow, I built Zombinutz 20 Hurricanes one day a month or so back. I sold off 10, fit 5 in a classic 425mm AC armor buffer fit for war time fun, and have another 5 waiting for arty specks when I get some more skills baked.Sadly the last 2 wars have been mega lame so tonight I decided it was time to burn a hull and go into lowsec.

I started in a specific part of LowSec that I ferry goods through often. There are a group of pirates that camp the gates praying on haulers and such that try to slip through. They have nabbed a few of my corp mates so I was looking to return the favor. I had a cloak in the highs as I was parked of one there favorite kill gates. Hoping to catch them in the act and jump them.Sadly none were about.

The alliance were talking smack about me floating in a 0.4 pipe hunting folks who were not online. One of the PvP focused dude was laying smack about coming down to shoot me himself. So I decide to head over to TAMA and take a walk though blackrise. Where there was a good chance I was going to die, or at least see some one to fight.

Jumped into Tama and local was 7. Not too exciting honestly, it tends to get busy at 20+ so I headed over to Kedama to start my planned run through blackrise. I jump through the gate into a nice 8 man Red Federation camp. Well the fight was on like it or not! I re-approached the gate at the first yellow box and they jumped folks through so I had two choices. A: Try to cut and run for another out gate or stick to plan B: and face the music back in tama.

I chose B and jumped through. I tried to warp through the gate to a planet but got pointed and webbed. I was 9k out full burn and locked onto a thorax as it was the one who aggressed and was nice and close. So it got the Neut and the ACs, the warrior II went after a rifter, but I pulled them back to finish off the thorax once it hit half armor. I was about 4K from the gate when the following happened. The thorax went down giving my first real solo kill. Hitting half structure I aligned to the out gate to high and mashed warp too. Irene ended her term of service and my pod was clear and in warp to the gate. Seems the stiletto, rifter and two jaguar were not fast enough on the pod so those implants live another day.

GFs exchanged in local and I'd taken my first step into solo lowsec PvP with a 1:1 kill:death and also getting the pod clear. It's 3 hours later and past 3 am local time. I am calm but some what excited. I remembered that I cooked my guns way too late when the thorax was half into armor. I should have went for the thresher and rifter first to get some webs off me and perhaps made the gate. Then again it's easy to look back and shouda-wouda-couda.

Next time I might take some friends with me, then again there is some satisfaction in going solo. Either way I really should do this more.

Well the war is over. A rather disappointing end to a rather dull 2 weeks. Seems like while we got a few kills most of the time it was station camping or chasing jump clones about.

The end was the disbanding of the opposing alliance and hence the forfeit of the wardec against us. Makes the mind boggle a little, but who am I to try and get into the minds of out assailants?!

In other news Rhea production progresses and mining resumes. Looking forward to the jump freighter and all it unlocks for the little Corp.

We added a few new members during the war. A couple of fine blokes from South Africa. I met them in local one day and started a wager over the SA VS AUST world rugby match. I ended up 50m isk and 2 new friends better off. So it was a good day.

The war has left a few of the ranks restless and hungry for pew pew that did not come with the war. As such I think it might be time for a little skirmish with a small pirate Corp that hunts the lowsec pipe between out offices. Hope to post some more on that soon.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Well it has been a dull few days in the war. At first I was all keen and spent most of my time with mains logged off in the last known location of my enemies with an alt logged in. Watching and waiting. However after 24 hours of them not logging in. Not 1. I decided it was time to be more productive.

So I peeled off one of my pilots and set out into lowsec. See I have this need for moon goo. I have some large T2 ships to build and well having a supply of moon goo would save me a small fortune. This means going to 0.1-0.3 systems and scanning moons.

I will say the process for scanning moons is a little dry with a cov ops frigate, expanded probe launcher, and discovery probes. You point the ship at the moon, fire probe, cloak, and wait 10 mins for results.

Those results are either a pop-up saying "tough luck" or a flashy tab and entry on you moon analysis tab under you scanning menu. I found out that if you log out this tab clears. So spreadsheets are a must.

I also took the time to note the moons that were occupied as well. What kind of POS, was it online, who owned it, what arrays it had anchored, and that sort of thing. Know thy neighbours and all that.

I spent a day and surveyed over 80 moons across a few select systems. It was more fun than waiting for the other team to show up for the war and I found several moons with the mineral types I was looking for. Cost me about 30M with the ship, fit and probes. Not bad and cheaper than loosing a 'cane.

Today I just blatantly mined all day. The other team had one pilot log in to scamper about for around half an hour before logging off. Seriously they declared war against our alliance...I swear it.

Honestly I think a war dec should auto retract if the decking CEO does not log in for longer than an hour every 24 hours. Oh and the decking Corp/alliance should be forced to pay the other side 10x the dec fee if this default happens.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

I mean shit I offered 2 ponies, a stripper pole, girl scout cookies with a troop of naked tween girl scouts, my ship, my pod with a 200m isk bounty, and my sister. All the other dude had to do was un-dock or leave the alliance that has decked us. One of my alliance mates said he was going to roll and alt, join the other side and cash that deal out.

We are sadly reduced to gang raping known ice mining Alts of the decing corps leader in destroyers for kicks.

My security status be falling, soon I'll not be able to return to my carebear ways and then what am I to do with 10 pre-fit 425mm 'canes?!

I also most tagged a orca last night I was at 12km full burn with scram cooked when it warped :( I'll get it, even if I I've to dec this ass clown myself for a week or two.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

First of all the dev blog on balancing for Capital ships appears to be a step towards a happier EvE. Yeah sure I am not much in the know about supercapital battles. However I like the fact that super carriers can no longer carry all kinds of drones. I like that Titan super weapons can not target sub caps. I also like no logiffski as well. Seems to me like a step in the right direction. I mean more use for sub-caps. Supercaps bought in for killing other supercaps and not some dude in a drake. No more "oh snap! My titan is pointed with a failing tank. I'll just log off and play an alt for a day then log back in to my ship later!" bull. You put it on the field you darn well be ready to loose it.

So one of the things that a Titan super weapon can shoot still post patch are jump freighters. Oddly enough this is some thing I am learning about.

See I have this fully trained freighter alt now. All ready to fly his Rhea. The down side is I don't own a Rhea...

What to do!? Why build one of course. 5.6 bn for a Charon with so so cargo capacity that can jump 5ly us silly talk. So I am busy building all the little bits that I can.

Anyhow this be an iPhone post. So not too much detail, but I will post a full report on the ins and outs and savings in building my own Rhea!

Friday, September 9, 2011

OK! Every once and a while I read back through my posts to get a feel for my writing moods. While I might be a self labeled grumpy old space hermit. Honestly this year I've been a major downer in reading my blog back. I have a lot of outward angst towards EvE here.

The funny thing is I log 40+ hours a week of EvE time. I get pissy when the servers are down and have 1 and 2 year skills plans for all 4 of my accounts. I secretly love EvE! Heck my alliance mates firmly believe EvE is my real job and RL is what I do for kicks.

Apparently outwardly in my blogging I've become this little blue fellow in the middle of the picture. Honestly I do this every year or so with EvE. It comes when I find myself in a rut and some what bored with my current adventures. The schedule of my 40+ hours of EvE time is mostly balanced around RL work. I have a lot of time where EvE is process based as a secondary task to that RL work (which comes first). I am also a father of 2 boys in RL, who come before my 12 alter egos in EvE. So most of my play time is very much a semi afk affair and this leads well into the industrial side of EvE. Mining belts dry, taking that resource and stacking it into build jobs. Research and invention tasks also bolt well into this available time. P.I. as well. I am very busy in EvE.

The downside of all this would be the level of monotony associated with these tasks. Honestly I can see why people bot a lot of these tasks. I however cannot bot, just rubs me the wrong way. Seems like cheating, and according to the EULA it is. So for now at least this is my EvE experience. The process driven and cyclic task based life of the industrialist. Honestly it's not a bad life and I can make 1BN isk a week with out breaking a sweat. Not too shabby at all.

So what's missing? Honestly I am not sure but I have some theories:

The first is PvP and my truly lame attempts at experiencing it. Nobody to blame here but myself. I just have not really given it a solid go. So this needs to change one way or another. Less talk more action even if I just undock and die. It's still a break in the routine and a new experience. Not going to talk about PvP anymore until I have a killmail to post.

The second is highsec. It's nature alone is very safe and static for those that want to be left alone to do there own thing. It's a great place for small groups of PvE folks and the small bands of PvP folks who harass them. In the same light it's also a very quickly experienced part of the game and then you're just in limbo. Same subset of missions and same subset of rocks to mine. I believe this is CCPs way to move folks out of the lobby and into the sandbox. It's time for me to go play in the sand more. So a change of sec space for some of my pilots would help mix things up. More about lowsec plans when they happen.

The third is walking in stations. I truly want this to be a great feature around which the community side of EvE can take more form and expression. I am not against vanity items to be honest. I don't care for the pricing and it's not some thing that interests me too much. Then again in RL I am a $20 jeans and EvE t-shirt kind of bloke. I cannot wait to see what's beyond station hanger door. I just have to be careful to not let my imagination over play the implementation. More to come on this when the station doors open.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Hello again dear reader(s). I trust you're doing well and content in your virtual life? Does this post find you at peace or filled with emo rage over our beloved EvE?

I am for once some what contented with in the realm of my multi faceted EvE existences.Contented being a fancy word for accepting the boredom. I have some 12 different people I assume the role of now with in the game. Each at different stages of development with in that given role or roles about new Eden. Those roles range from a grumpy old indy space hermit, through a lost PvP pilot in an orca, to a band of Caldari girls named after fine Scotch who lay waiting for training queues. There is another who might prove to be better known some day, but for now he remains in the shadows.

So really this post has not real purpose. It's a bunch of sweet nothings. I continue to mine Ice and make ISK. I build stuff (20 hurricanes, 100 Hammer Head IIs and 90 Hobgoblin IIs this week), and research BPOs. I train characters, buy ships, and see good blogs die day in and day out.

But well LOWsec is where it is at apparently. Shame even that brings me no excitement. Of late I could haul my goods through lowsec in a charon at 5% hull and not see another soul for the most part.

Perhaps it's time for me to go griefer...or try lowsec mining to give some badass a cheap kill...or start wardecking other indy corps for grins...IDK...Nothing changes. ISK and SKILLPOINTS go up, but its the same damn game it was 6 months ago.

this about sums it:

My 8 year old son "hey what can you do now you can walk?"

I showed him ALL the features of CQ to which he replied "Wow, pretty boring. You cannot even jump or run! Where are all the other people?"

I say "I know Son, it's VERY lame and that is the BIG summer expansion. Want to play some Lego batman with me on the PS3?"

I log and we go play a game where you can run and jump and interact with stuff that is not $15 a month.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

I was reading this DEV BLOG the other day. All keen about the prospect of 0.0 getting some love. Yet one line hit me like a ton of bricks smack in the face:

"Making something tedious will not stop players doing it if it's very clearly the best option. They'll do it, and they'll hate it"OK so the dev blog itself has a lot more too it, but this line made me stop and think of the mindless repetitive stuff I do daily in EVE. That was the slapin the face. He are the things I do day in and day out:

1: Restart the processors on 25 planets
2: Mine 500-1000 blocks of Ice. drag and drop ice every 3.8M. Haul it to station every 1.2 hours.
3: Run the same 10 courier missions over and over to raise CreoDron standings for R&D
4: type "o/" in every chat channel
5: travel through lowsec but clicking warp too -> MWD -> Cov ops cloak.
6: add people to a fleet by selecting invite to fleet -> wing -> squad -> Squad member
7: Buy stuff low, haul, sell high
8: Click on Mail -> mark all as read on 90% of it.

I am sure there are more, but that's a pretty monotonous at least once a day routine. The sad thing is when I break from schedule and do something different. I warp to encounter -> ctrl+click all the + and then click on the missile spam death button. Then I salvage it all until I cannot keep my eyes open.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Things change they say. Those changes can be good and bad. I'd like to believe good things can last forever and through change the longevity of said good thing can be achieved. This assumes the the good core of it is not drastically altered to where it becomes a brand new good thing.

One might consider EvE to have changed drastically this year with Incrana and micro transactions. Others might consider it did not change enough where it needed too. This flux in the good thing that is "EVE" has changed one thing for sure. The face of the blogging community and while it's not the only factor at play. There is a unmistakable disturbance in the blog force here.

Perhaps the biggest news is that of the "blog father" CrazyKinux announcing his retirement from the EvE blogging world. Shutting down his famous EvE blog with this last Post. While it was not so much the game that created this action. It is still a blow to the community, as well, he bought popularity to EvE blogging and did tremendous things for EvE and those that play it. The blogPack and the blog Banter being 2 very notable children of his influence. It was these that compelled me to blog about EvE because it was just what people did when they played EvE. He will be missed but will he be replaced? Perhaps in small parts yes, but not as one individual IMO.

Outside this there are a few other ones to note. Helecity Bosson got banned. Mansai hung up the harness. Arukemos and keith Neilson got all RL on us. Mynxee's blog http://lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com/ is now a private blog. While I cannot fault any of these people for there actions and convictions. They are blogs I read daily and many of them were instrumental in the community. They are missed.

My own blogging has become a slow trickle as well. It's not through lack of interest in the game but rather a drastic change in focus in my in game activities. I am currently 100% carebear mode and as a result I have blogged about 100% of what I am doing in the past. So aside from some updates, the annual war with a griefer, and new toys there is not much to blog about. Does this mean I don't play EvE anymore? Nope! Does this mean I am going to close the blog? Nope!

I am hoping the changes continue to happen to EvE. I hope those changes don't drive away players and entertaining bloggers. However for the PvP folks there seems to be very little love from CCP. Kind of scary in a self proclaimed PvP sandbox game that exists on the need for PEW PEW to blow shit up to drive the game economy along. Incarna was a MAJOR flop IMHO and should not have been released until it was fully baked. Microtransactions are 100% tied to Incarna today and created a Vast rift in the community. I hope CCP reads the signs and listens to the players, but hope is often that of people who are not wanting to face the truth. Space barbies and dress up seem to be the new direction of EvE for CCP. They all ready make all the money they can from PEW PEW. With dust coming, they need to add full body avitars to the game. I am kind of curious what they will do with Incarna past CQ. I'd love to be able to board ships with an assault team. I'd love to be able to land on my PI colonies and defend them. I'd love to have a bar as my corps. Public channel. I'd like the choice to find the station huggers in said bars and pop a cap in there dome. Will it happen? who knows. Yet if it does, what will that do the the community and the face of the EvE blog sphere?

Monday, August 15, 2011

Hello again Mom and the few others that read about my EVE life. It's been a while since I posted. Yes yes, it's always a while these days between posts. The thing is, well not much is happening. I've also kind of stopped posting thing I might do. Like cage fights or 5 dead rifters.

OK so with all that what has happened? I continue to buy and research BPOs. So much so that I recently upgraded my highsec POS from a small to medium tower. Added some fun stuff for R&D, Manufacturing and war time stuffs.

I've also added a 4th account to my ranks finding now that I get exponential gains from each mining pilot in my fleet. I also had more R&D and manufacturing slots than I had people to use them, and well the ability to fund accounts with Plex. It kind of just happened. Anyhow the new "guy" is chewing through exhumer/science/manufacturing school. He can fly a T2 fit Caracal for both PvE and PvP as well. His alt slots have some interesting plans, but that's one of those I might do things.

HCSH and HCRND are now part of an Alliance again. Former alliance mates formed up a new one and we are now part of Forged in Fire (FORG). It's an industrialist based highsec/lowsec Alliance which pretty much builds capital ships and such. So another alliance ticker at the end, but old folks I've known in game for a bit now.

My Rhea alt is slugging away at the requirements and optimals for the flight of the jump freighter. The most exciting part is that his PI side project is paying for the skill books along the way. The next big hurdle here is the RHEA itself. 5+ BN ISK for a hauler seems daunting, but with all things one must ponder the cost of building. Then it's just hours in a belt and stuff to buy in Jita. So with 50 days left on the train clock I am also looking at Rhea Build skills with SOB :)

Lets see what else. Oh yeas, SOBs personal "Monday" project is called "Project 20 'canes". This is exactly what it sounds like. After I mine POS ICE on Mondays I then go out and mine rocks towards a "project". This project is simply to build 20 hurricanes and the T2 fit I have chosen for it. Corp and Alliance folks asked me why I would want 20 fit 'canes and who pissed me off or needs to be kilt. I am not commenting on the future of these 20 'canes past the fit having a point and no desire to sell them. May or may not do anything with them at all. Right now 5/20 are built and this Monday is shaping up for a few more.

ICE mining for ISK continues to consume most of my time after this. I make 150M+ a day sitting in a belt while I RL work. Yes yes, I am bad working and playing video games. However my work gets done, and my company still gets 10+ hours a day out of my hide. I might surf the web a little (LOT) less, but well ice mining is a drag and drop every 4 mins and a dock and unload every hour and 20 mins. Either way ICE still provides me with the funding for new BPOs and toys like my Navy Scorp.

SOB is nearing the end of a long set of Science skill training for T2 anything building. I've been pondering a carrier for him next as a break from indy focus. Just as I have my eyes on a HAC and a new BS hull. SO I'll be training some new toys for him soon before T3 production skills etc. carrier is kind of cool and as I like to be able to build what I fly, it's another BPO set and potential buid to sell item for me. Oh and all those drones and such too :)

Anyhow, for now I am out of stuff to waffle about. Zomb is T2 HAC ready and training medium AC gun skillz at the moment just in case he stops being my ORCA bitch.

Friday, July 29, 2011

We all have one. A Grand Master Plan that we strive towards. Some are simple like "I will kill EVERYONE in lowsec today!" and other more Grand "I will convince everyone in Providence I am the ONE true Ruler!". Yet most of us really just need ISK to pay for our plans. So one could consider making ISK and lot of it the common Grand Master Plan for most EVE players.

There are many ways to make ISK in EVE. From modest belt ratting and salvaging to multi faceted 0.0 mega conglomerates. I've been making 140-150M ISK a day mining ice 4 days a week of late. It's tedious work best suited for bots, but I can do it while engaged in other life tasks. So for me it's a pretty damn fine way to make isk requiring two drag and drops every 4 mins and a dock and unload every hour or so. Pretty much like watching any other of the processes I monitor daily.

Anyhow I have a few other passive income slots as well through P.I. and research. I also have this wonderful little highsec POS tucked away with lots of copy slots available. See the plan is not a new one, nor is it really that cunning. In fact a number of other bloggers are currently vacationing from there WH or 0.0 lives to do it. It's really just the BPC market and building anything from an Orca to a Dred. See today if I want to build an Orca, I have to shovel out 100M in BPCs to some one else or a Charon it's 200M for BPCs. NOT COOL!

Yet the cunning plan is not to do that anymore, but BUY my OWN capital ships and capital component BPOs and be the dude getting that 200M. Well that and adding 100-200M on top of the Orcas and Charons I build. Cunning plan yes YES it is.

BUT WAIT! Those Pesky ME and PE thingies are not there with new BPOs. Yeaps, this is true so this plan requires some nurturing and time to flourish. See an orca BPO takes about 8 months of stewing in a POS ME/PE lab before it can be really considered useful. Charon about the same. Capital components 1-2 months to simmer before serving. So really this is a 6-12 month plan of which I am well behind many other EvE players.

I am cool with this as, well I have my 5 day schedule where one day I do PI, feed the POS and stockpile rocks. Then the other 4 days I either mine rocks for corp projects, or suck in 1000+ blocks of white glaze to sell in the 138,000-154,000 per block markets we are seeing these days. So time and ISK I have on my side.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

So it's no secret that I've been mining a LOT these days. Like 150M ISK a day worth of ice kind of mining, or all the rocks to build an orca in 4 days kind of mining. Silly amounts of time in a belt sucking in stuff. I've sworn off mining before and promised to never do it again. However honestly it's one of those past times in EVE that fits my 80% semi afk play time. So well I mine a lot...

Anyhow, I've put all that mining ISK into new mining fleets ships and BPOs for a good while now. My highsec POS has been invaluable and I get it's fuel for free through PI and 1 hours Ice mining a week. So it was time to invest in some fun ships for that 20% of my game time where I can actually focus on the game 100%

Last weeks war saw me spend about 100M ISK in new PvP fit ships that ultimately floated in space around a gate or station. Those are now stowed and ready for when I might need them again with a LOT of ammo and spare parts/hulls. So I decided it was time to spend some ISK on my Mission boats. The raven is long in the tooth now and a change was needed.

So I had two paths I could go down the Missile loving caldari path. The CNR or the Scorpion Navy Issue. More gank and more tank essentially. I tend to duel box missions in a pair of battle ships and constantly found myself adding RR from my second BS to the raven. This essentially meant I had a dominix in space with sentries out and the highs shield boosting the raven. I could have a T2 fit megathron instead of that Domi if the damn raven could tank. So ultimately I went for less gank and a more self sufficient tank. Hence the Navy Scorpion.

I fit it with an nice active tank and some T@ cruise launchers. Getting 80+% across all resists with my current skills and about 47M cap time before it bleeds dry with it all on. Here is the fit:

Pretty standard stuff honestly for a PvE boat IMO, but some might disagree (post a fit if you do).

So I dropped by my local caldari Navy lvl 4 agent, pulled Guristas Extravaganza and set about the task of shooting red crosses dead. Dude I am not excited easy by level 4 after over 2 years as mostly a carebear. However I was very excited that this thing could aggro all the spawns in the last room (I triggered on purpose) andtank them all while I burned them down with cruise missile spam death and drones. If that was my old Active raven, I'd be out of cap boosters and dead or running about half way through it.

So this leaves me with a dilemma now. See I have this Gellante Battlle ship that really I don't need now and I have to find something for SOB to fly in missions to bring more gank to the party. PvE fit rail mega perhaps...

Sunday, July 24, 2011

In the end I think our oppressors found the war to be equally lacking in stimulus as we did. We all spent time in local together. I tried to chat parley, they shunned. In the end the only shots fired were friendly shield tests.

In the end it did allow us to fit up some PvP ships, figure out what holes we wanted to fill, work on our fleet communications and well be able to stand and fight. I was able to share with some the techniques I learned for setting up camps etc in my short stay in 0.0. Also some folks got some free Jump Clones as a result of joining HCRND and it has Wicked good standings with Caldari State and navy.

So in short the war was not that exciting PvP wise. Honestly there was none. It was a good exercise in shutting the doors and putting the pointy end in space. So for that I can thank the corp. that dec'd us.

For now it's back to amassing large amounts of ISK and wondering if that HAM drake fit really would have worked :)

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Well the picture should give you a clue. Our sole antagonist logs in for a bit. Accepts my private conversation but does not respond to my "Good Day. How are you today?" civilities. Yes I know, no comms blah blah, but as CEO I have to try to parlay. I add "Still not talking? Pity. Have a nice day." before closing the chat.

We sit on gates in battleships alone with juicy KILL mails written on the side. Scorpions of all things too with lousy tanks. Just waiting for this 5 year old pilot to reap us with her Manticore called "Jaws". Yet she simply sits there cloaked and chews gum. Ah well we try to be tasty snacks for our oppressors. We truly do.

I've been mining during the war. Put a raven in the cooker today after knocking out the last of the mats. Not really that hard solo mining bouncing belts staying aligned and watching local. Add some watch list contacts and a little healthy dSCAN now and then. Honestly it's a damn sight more exciting than mining during peace.

Logging for the day. ISK has been made and attempts to fight have been had. Lets hope tomorrow has a Kill mail eh?

Friday, July 15, 2011

Some members of HCSH joined with some former alliance folks to bash a POS. Not really huge news but there is a little back story.

See the POS belonged to our former alliance leader. Who through his own actions alienated most of us. The story would have ended there but said fellow accused certain folks of hiring a merc Corp to dec him. Claiming former Alliance members were plotting to explode his POS.

I cannot say if any one hired a copy or not. However those accused of the crime decided to be guilty. Boom one less POS on lowsec.

Friday, July 8, 2011

There is no particular topic for this post. No real reason to write it honestly. It truly will be/is random stuff that popped into my head this Friday while I mined ice.

The first is that my net worth after a few years at this game is only about 6 BN ISK. Factoring in current wallet and assets. Not too much for 2 years of game play, but I guess we have all blown up ships and fired ammo. Still I need MORE net value. Taking a mental note to fix this, greed is good.

The next is the funny way old "associates" come out of the wood work from time to time. Not going to dive too deep in this pool, but I've had more than a few folks ask me to come shoot people in Null again of late. Not yet, the bear is still growing fat.

I like RJs twitter hats over at EVEOGANDA. They truly are THE vanity Item to have. I might ask him for a pony hat for Zombinutz as my new "about me" picture. Then again, I might leave him be.

Seems like some folks really have quit EVE over the last patch. Sad times but well folks are allowed to act as they will. I'll miss some blogs for sure. :(

I enjoyed this post over at eve's parity bit. I totally like the ideals of there needing to be a separate process for de-podding for those that want to walk. Just as I agree it's a bit much to go from the nervous system and brain of a ship and suddenly be a humanoid with perfect hair and an itchy head. Excellent suggestion of a middle ground stage. Solving many current ISSUES folks might have with CQ and the lack of the hanger/ship spinning state we all loved.

I have three accounts and yet I crave a 4th. WHY!?!

Will future releases of Incarna let me turn my corps public channel "HCSH-Tavern" into an Actual tavern? How much will it cost to have a bar? Will I need to hire bouncers? Will those be EVE players or Dust players? Does anyone want to hang out in my public corp. Bar and drink fictional drinks while sipping real ones alone in your office? Can I shoot those I don;t like when In my bar, can they shoot me. Will exotic dancers be PG-13 or M for mature if allowed. Can you get drunk in Incarna in my bar, and crash your ship into the docking bays? Who knows....Does anyone care?

All right, real world Mrs SOB birthday day. Off to make Chicken Piccata and eat some cake.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Sitting here watching my kids slice and dice objects on a Wii speed cutting game. I find my self pondering what next to do in EVE.

I've been mining like a crazed fool over the last few months. I've mined ice and rocks. Built charon and orca and ravens. I've made and spent and made back a few billion as well through inflated ice prices.

I should run more missions to raise standings with R&D corps. I should invent more T2 stuff. I should finish that Corp project. Yet I need more ISK for my goals, like all of us. So perhaps I might give trading a go.

I have some basic trading skills on sonofbraben, but will most likely split off an alt and train a dedicated trading pilot. The plan right now is to peel off 500M and see what my trading alt can do with it once trained.

Any advice from others is welcomed, even if I know another trader is competition.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

I am a huge fan of change and game progressions. I really truly am to the point of spending cash to buy additional content etc. For the most part added content and features are happy times for the players of a game and a sign of a game developers longevity. I just don't get how captain's quarters and this silly vanity item shop gives any EVE player a chubby!?

Lets review the patch shall we:

1: So we get to strut about in a small dimly lit room, forced to wear cloths, and experience buggy shading and horrendous video card requirements for it. Um yeah, nice job. Certainly worth a day of downtime, client disconnects, and loosing half my active corp members while they figure out if they need to buy a new PC, or just turn that shit off.

2: Animated turrets and stuff. This is actually pretty damn cool for the first 2-3 times you undock a ship and shoot some thing with it. Sadly the animations require you to be zoomed in to really see them. Great for the EVE movie makers, a meh for the folks who actually want to fight.

3: "micro" transaction Vanity items. OK it seems like micro in Iceland has been miss translated to MASSIVE. I mean OH MY F##KING GOD a plex =3500 AUR. Seriously spending $15 for some boots that suck!? Looking at the VAST selection of available cloths, that all look like some messed up, bad porn spoof of a WW2 Uniform. Folks missed the mark, and I mean shooting at jita and hitting SKG-PY kind of off the mark. FAIL!!!!

4: Agent finder: GREAT, it's pretty much a built in version of http://eve-agents.com. So for us agent based carebear PvE types, it's one less bookmark in the in game browser. It does mean we can start conversations with that agent with one less copy and paste. So hey, Nice job, really I like it.

5: other crap. Some one told me salvages have a longer range now. That's nice. I now have this feature where my clients randomly disconnect. great I guess. My undock button comes and goes, as does local/corp chat channels. Awesome, those are dull anyways. I need to dig in an extra layer when trying to move stuff from my ship to the corp hangers now. Steller.

I know at least 5 people in my VERY small list of close associates in EVE who are pretty much unable to play the game at the moment. Either through needing a hardware upgrade, or horrendous issues with the game. I know at least 3 of those will probably walk away. So lets see how that might scale. 300k subscribers. If in 1 in every 50 players rage quits because of this patch, that's what 6000 people out the door. That's US$90,000 a month in lost subscriptions... Ah well DUST 514 will save CCP...

All grumbling aside, I hope the game does not suffer for this. I hope CCP gets a clue about the definition of micro, and stabilizes incarna. Makes it worth the time to be the cyber punk full body avatar with out COMPLETELY forgetting what EVE is, an Internet SPACESHIP game. I mean one real rival game, and New Eden will be dust and dried up pod fluid. I mean really if BioWare made a MMO Masseffect with more space combat....Ponder that a sec CCP.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

I was just logging in today when boom, all three of my accounts disconnect. Sockets close, corrupt sessions and no love trying to log in.

Hit http://eve-offline.net/ and watched as everything but Serenity turned to a red circle with a big X in the middle. Then I hit the EVE Online facebook page and read the news about the attack and the measures taken.

So a lot of $5 fools were on facebook complaining about the game being down and demanding it be bought back or free ISK/Skillpoints/ponies be given out. The older wiser $150 fools were glad that they set long skills to train. The $1000 fools like myself were hoping that this day would end with out some 14 year old ordering porn with my creditcard information. /emote prays his card is not being entered into -censored-.com

Seems like the world of the 14 year old pimply geeks with a love for basement air and mothers fine microwave cooking is a buzz these days. I mean playstation network, nintendo, and now EVE Online. Seems like gamers are targets and one can only wounder how long it will be before blizzard is in the news for a hack attempt on WoW. Gasp the 14 year olds are attacking each other...Old farts like me best go back to simple games like pong if we want to be safe.

Well I am off to see what is outside of the basement. Perhaps I'll watch a movie with my kids, mow the lawn, take a walk, or grill a tasty steak. I am sure CCP will get the firewall rules fixed and the environment back online soon enough.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Sunday here in the real world. I've started to grind another R&D agent Corp standings. Having got all Lai Dai level 4 agents unlocked. It is now time for CreoDron. Doing distribution agents as couriers take me about 3 mins each and I can churn out those and storyline missions quick.

Ice prices in lonetrek have started to fall and frankly if I see another ice field in June I'll hurl. It had been a good run paying for a Charon, bustard, vexor, and hulk. With some extra healthy padding to the wallet.

This week it is off to remote mining systems to massacre rocks for a second orca, 5 ravens, and another Charon. I can almost solo mine (with three accounts) a Charon in 8 days. So with the Corp now with 5+ active hulk pilots. We should knock it out pretty quick.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

It is time for this month’s “Where in the Universe is EVE SOB” post where every month I summarize where I am at in EVE. I also throw in some real world stuff and the top CNN headline of the day for a historical WTF was the world doing back then element.

Time keeps on slipping into the future. DAMN IT ALL!

So records indicate the last WUES was in DECEMBER 2010! Um yeah, sorry about that. What can I say, been lacking in the blog inspiration fund for a while. However with the new folks in the corp. and some interest in PvP and well the current ice prices in lonetrek. Activity has been enough that I find myself with that itching burning sensation to blog. (TMI?! OK noted)

Warning issued that it's still going to be highsec carebear stuff for the most part. It might well cause a few comas in the readers, but well why have a blog if you don't post eh? Hold on I am about to turn this thing up to MAX and get it spinning at a blistering 2 RPM.

So what am I doing:

hmm... Let's see. I/we the executive committee responsible for healthcare for Space Hermits corporation are seeking young and eager pilots to join our organization. As such ranks are growing and the potential to inflict some serious harm on asteroids and frigate belts rats has grown. This in turn means we can build it. Well most stuff that is and slowly find our little crew entering the capital ship market. WOOT!

With Ice as high as 190,000ISK a block in and around Jita. I also find myself spending mind numbing amounts of time in an Ice belt these days. I mine 112 blocks an hour which nets me about 20 Million ISK and I do this semi afk while I chat and work for 6-8 hours. So sitting about I make about 120-160 Million ISK 5 days a week. Yes I could make that easier in Null sec ratting sure, or moon mining in Low. I could sure, but I drag and drop 2 items every 4 minutes and stack and sort and haul about once every hour. really 120-160M ISK a day for that kind of focus is pretty darn cool. Sure I could trade and make more with less effort. I agree, once I have the trade skills and the capital.

So why do I need ISK? Who does not need it right!? Well I am building a capital BPO set which falls into the "NOT FREE" bucket of stuff in EVE. Short term goals will cost me about 5.8 Billion in BPOs.

Things I am training: SonOfBraben: Ice processing V, because I hate waste and the POS is hungry. After that more manufacturing skills, and perhaps a thanatos skill set for fun.

ZombiNutz: getting all missile skills to T2 IV from rockets-torps. Then I got my eye on a HAC build and a nice hurricane build. Should keep me busy for a bit.

Sister jayde: Meet sister jayde, the third accounts main. She is finishing her exhumers V training. Then she will hand the queue over to an alt to grind down the requirements for a RHEA. Said alt can pilot and has a Charon. this third account is proving very handy.

Real Life Stuffs:

In short. Kids are growing and doing great. Mrs. SOB still loves me. The summer in the USA is oddly hot for this time of year. tornadoes where they should not be. I got a new grill, and some nice grass fed beef. So life is good.

Work is busier than ever and my EVE time limited as a result. Hence the semi afk ice mining :) If work wants me 14 hours a day, they can deal with me dragging and dropping ice every 4 mins and hauling once an hour.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Down time today is running longer and longer. Seems like every time I check in (about once every 30 mins) the extended time goes out by 1 hour. Some where around 18:30 GMT now.

I am a huge fan of new features and UIs and sexy avatars and walking about etc. I truly like evolution of games and how software developers strive to add that fresh car smell back to the games they write. EvE is a super cool game and while we could all argue that other improvements are more important. At the end of the day, it would be cool to strut about now that we have sexy space barbies to play with.

I can also sympathize with the deployment dudes. The world of IT never goes to schedule and often it takes a lot of massage to get things to work. Especially during major upgrades where there are so many dependencies. So I get the extensions and actually appreciate the diligence.

However I can pout and stomp my foot about the extended down times. Make silly puns on the release all I like. I pay for this service and frankly it is typically considered un-cool to go over or extend a window for paying customers. It typically has a associated penalty with it. So every time a down time goes long, as a consumer I feel jipped. I feel the need to cry foul and want a pony from CCP for being put out.

This pouting can be fixed via:

A: Communicate the window better. If it's HUGE. Tell us it will be 5 hours and I'll go do some thing else.B: Man up CCP and admit you made a mistake. Give us all some love. Perhaps a free plex for all if CCP over runs 3 deployments in a year. Some Skill points or ISK. Some thine that acknowledges that CCP through error took away time we have paid for, so here is a small compensation.C: We all go play the next awesome space MMO that gets released (Braben Bring on the ELITE for the 2010's).

Anyhow. Client is updating. Perhaps soon I can see the new sparklies....OH how lame would it be if this was just a pre-release and we get now sparklies.

Cheers

EVE SOB

P.S. The API is DOWN, the GAME is DOWN but the BILLING SYSTEM still tells me one of my accounts needs US$15 in 1D 19H 28m and 35s for another month of time...

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Today I am out and about with my family and I had a though about the current state of HCSH.

I recently appointed 2 good friends as directors, The Sarj and Raknore. I then gave them the directive to grow the Corp and organize events and goals.

They freaked a bit thinking I was going to disappear. I assured them I am not. Explained that I simply wanted some folks who can help move the Corp forward and act in it's best interests when I am off line.

With this we are geared extremely well to help new players get started with EvE. We are also geared to give organized structure to more seasoned carebears.

Current Corp projects include building charons to sell for profit. (we build about 1 every 2 weeks).Restocking our frigate replacement pool for new pilots. Growing active members in UK and US time zones.

We are very laid back and tend to focus on helping our members become self sustaining. We encourage folks to set there own paths and are always open to suggestions for Corp projects.

Anyhow. I am very happy with the work of the directors as well as the steady Corp growth.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I actually posted some thing. In the comments of said post Rixx Javix recently threatened to go Bruce Banner on me. So finally about a week or so after this I find myself actually here posting. I've been here a few times actually. Started to post some thing and just froze up and never finished. Anyhow...

It's been a long long time and the following are true statements:

1. I am not dead2. I have not EMO RAGE quit EvE3. Highsec has no corroded away my brain4. I have not gone back to WoW5. I was not the ONLY person taken out by the zombie Apocalypse!

SO what have I been doing!? Honestly a metric crap ton of mining with a side of mining and mining ice cream a la mode. Why have I been mining!?!! To build an Orca and a Charon and now another charon. Then perhaps a thanatos and who knows what. Oh and I've been mining with the new members in my rag tag little highsec corp. Well actually I have 2 of those now, but anyhow.

Let's see what else. Zombinutz can now fly a manticore fit that's pretty badass. He's got maxed Orca Leader ship skillz. He is working towards a nice fancy HAC. SonOfBraben can pretty much build anything except T3 stuff. Has his eyes on a thanatos for the winter. Sister Jayde can pretty much consider herself a expert Mining barge pilot and has a fully trained Charon Alt.

Outside of that I log in 5 days a week. each day I play 2-8 hours in a number of capacities across my three accounts. I am yet to try Worm Holes, LOW sec (except for flying through it), Moon mining, trading (real trading), faction warfare, or half a dozen other things I cannot name.

Well running out of material. Finding it forced at this point. SO long for now. I'll TRY to post more, but well "I built a really big ship today!" or "Holly crap my BPOs have a ME of X and a PE of Y!" are not always great points of interest.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

It's been a busy week or three about the lives I live. Both those inside and outside of EvE have been a busy bustle of activity.

Real life is the life of a IT geek in a lean staffed expanding company. Always doing some thing, or being asked to go some place, be that physically or virtually, to do some thing else. I hear we have a bad economy yet I am fortunate to be doing well for now.

Inside the game HCSH has hired 2 new pilots both with a keen sense of mining. So I decided to re-light the Corp. goal of building a Orca which will be finished by the end of the week. My 3rd account is maturing well with a baked Hulk pilot, a charon pilot, and a third slot for future plans.

SOB has recently gone on a pilgrimage to max out his mining, refining, lab and manufacturing skills. After which he will most likely finish out the last science skills to build anything sub cap Caldari T2.

ZombiNutz finished his manticore training and added Amarr frigates to his list rounding out all races for frigates. He is doing a little leadership skill training and then will work on his Lazorz of doom. Perhaps booster his armor tanking a bit.

However right now I am with out an alliance, running 2 small but happy corps., and a little bit lost again for what to do next. Sure I could build capital ships and T2 ships and sell them for ISK. I have a solid mining crew now who can churn out the materials for such. I could work on my miserable standings with the gallente but well grinding missions makes me want to barf. Perhaps some kind of lowsec venture. One that I can fit into my RL schedule. Who knows what comes next. I've even been given opportunity to venture back to NULL in both PvP and indy sense.

All I know is there are many tings left to do and if I change nothing. My EvE life and RL fit well together right now. I have good people who I consider friends in my corps. and we are generally happy doing what we are. Some times change is not the answer I guess. Am I really needing one?

Saturday, April 16, 2011

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and given some attention to my blog. Far too long to show any respect for the few that read it or my own sense of recording my EVE life. Regrets aside for the long break I do have some things to post and update.

First big news is that HCSH and HCRND are no longer part of the PIES alliance. Sadly a wardec was the catalyst to cause an internal crumbling and well the leader of the Alliance decided to attack key members for plotting against him and pretty much told everyone to get out. Well sitting back in my humble little corps. It was not too hard to see that the leader had lost the plot and the few that I flew with often were out the door. Kind of sad but oddly not shocking.

I am maintaining a relationship with a number of former alliance member corps and continue to work with them I did inside the alliance. Many potential future paths we all could take but for now I am content to research the living snot of out BPOs, mine rocks, and run missions with my corpies.

Growing the corp. has been pretty much non-existent with folks joining then leaving because we don’t have enough members. I am VERY honest with folks applying that we are growing slowly but hey folks get lonely I guess. A hint, might not want to join a corp. called Healthcare for Space Hermits if you’re the lonely type…. :)

As for the wardec it was apparently on account of former alliance members throwing disrespectful smack talk around. Unfortunate and unnecessary way to incur a war, but one that I guess is common. I spent some time shooting the breeze with the CEO of the declaring carp. Nice enough fellow just looking for some fun and a little pay back for the slanderous comments. I had fit some manticore and wolf boats up to fight in the war. It seems they fielded a small gang of T3 ships and got a few cheap kills here and there at gates and stations. They managed to get one of my corp members who flew with an outdated clone. It was a harsh lesson to learn as 3M SP just went pop along with his pod. We replaced his ship and I bought him a set of +3 implants (offered +4’s but he could not use them) to help get him back under way. Saved him a day towards flying his lost hulls.

So I am not dead, nor have I emo rage quit or moved on to other games. I am still out here in space at the helm of 2 small corporations. Still doing the Highsec carebear thing for now.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

I normally keep this blog firmly focused on EvE but this past weeks events have not made that so easy.

I have 2 very close and dear friends who are living in Japan as part of the JET program. So every news story of earthquakes, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown threats hit a little harder home.

So far they are only suffering the same shock at the tragic events and sadness we are and remain safe and glad to be alive.

I also had the pleasure to attend a taiko drumming performance by Kodo over the weekend. It was that much more powerful to see Japanese drummers giving there all knowing how much devastation had taken place in Japan.

If any of you can spare $10 please donate it to a Japanese aid fund. The red cross has one going via text. Simply text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10. Buy one less round of coffee/beer this week and help the hundreds of thousands of misplaced Japanese eat and stay warm.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Some days it astounds me the depth alone in the indy side of EvE. I mean one can spend literally years training and focusing in just building stuff.

Having recently got access to a research POS I am busy researching BPOs to make those sparkling ships that much cheaper. I am also pondering BPOs for copy jobs to sell as yet another passive income. So much to do and ISK to make and spend.

I've been building T2 stuff for a bit now and as time ticks along bigger ships are crossing my inventing slots. With these come a greater demand for moon products and still more BPOs. So I find my self keenly looking at moon mining as well. This means lowsec or 0.0 space.

So with zombie rounding out torp skills for his manticore the need to go out into more dangerous systems in search of a nice place to live is on the near horizons. Sure more risk and more PvP over PvE for me soon.

A jump freighter alt is training. Sob will prob add some more PvP skills. Jayde can even fly a t2 fit tackle t1 frigate. I've always thought every pilot should have some PvP ability. I mean EvE is a PvP game right!?

Reminds me I need to follow up with the BBW and schedule a lesson in t1 frigate ass whoppin' (mine for sure)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Well it seems like quick mobile blogage are how I post these days. It has been a busy time in the carebear life.

Hulkageddon IV was about since I last posted. Rather than complain I used the week to raise my standings with Caldari state. Now I have a Highsec research POS. Thank you hulkageddon. I also like the crazy ice and mineral prices.

Sonofbraben ticked over 20m skill points and Zombinutz is deep into torpedoes V getting his manticore on for grins. Sob also trained research project management to IV so I have datacores coming out my implant slots.

I had a few 1 v 1 with zomb. Won one against our alliance leaders PvP toon. Had a very dull stalemate with Astral Dominix and the BBW issued a challenge I plan to honor. It is nice to burn a hull and have some fun. I need to follow up with a few other Ritter duels that have slipped away as well. Time to stop being a freaking carebear.

Not sure what's next. My 3rd account is ticking along with a second hulk pilot near done. Then a jump freighter pilot. I have some other alt ideas as well to get a little more out of my 3 subs.

There is a lot of chatter around me at the moment for a return to 0.0 in a number of angles. I still face a time crunch dilemma. I don't want to feel like I miss the party every time in do get to log in. Nor do I want to be that guy who is never around. We shall see.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

I've been home a week from my work trip to Seattle and I am yet to see my kids for more than 30 mins at a time. So this weekend is all about my two little men and some man time.

Inside my busy work schedule I've found moments to keep PI running and get some level 4 missions in. I am getting into a grove now with the RR Domi and Raven combo. I am writing a full post on the setup.

Hulkageddon 4 is in full swing. My highsec alliance is all bent out of shape about it. I am spending the time challenging folks to frigate 1 v 1 with zombinutz and squeezing in more missions for standings gain.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Ever had one of those weeks? The kind of week where it all blurs together? This past week was one such for me.

It started with a flight across the US from east coast to west coast. It ended with a red eye flight from west to east coasts. In between were long days of meetings and long nights of drinking. Many jägerbombs and Scotch mixed in with some pool and after work chats about work.

In the middle of all this got a new work laptop that needed some love to get EVE to play. Oh and all three of my accounts ran out of training. So some where in the blur at around 3am while suffering the effects of booze. I some how was able to get EVE to run and set my queues, start the PI farms and reply to a few mails.

So to those in my alliance please do not take it personal when I opt to not join that mining op for a bit. This week I plan to run missions until I can finish the standings grind I need for a Highsec POS. Should be worth a few ISK too. :)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

There are many times where I think of some stellar thing to blog about and I am no where near a PC. Yet there are very few times in my life that I do not have my iPhone with me. So I finally loaded up blogpress on the phone.

The idea here is that I'll be able to post quick updates and on the go EVE thoughts.

Friday, February 4, 2011

It's funny how things play out in EVE. How some days you are just content to drift around carefree without any real plans. Then the next your driven to do something or chase another avenue of the game.

Late in 2010 somewhere in the last week of December I was hosting an Alliance Ice mining OP. They are riveting events that rank up there with paint drying. The saving grace is the fleet chatter typically has some hilarious banter. Anyhow during this ICE op my wallet hit under 100M (41M to be more exact) as I shelled out 80M for a pilot who wanted a Mackinaw to park in our Ice system. As he was a good friend and someone who would mine a lot I gladly gave up the ISK. I'd recently bought an orca, new hulk, mackinaw and a raven. So my wallet went from a healthy 800M ISK to 41M ISK rather fast in December.

So a goal was set during that very same day to have 2B ISK in my wallet come Feb. Which for a dude with limited playtime living in empire space is no cake walk. Well at least not in my books and it makes me wonder how many folks could start at 40M after having a lot of ISK and rebuild the wealth. Lets also be clear I have never sold PLEX and do not plan to in the future. I may reach a point where one of my accounts is sustained by buying them, but I do not believe simply buying ISK is the way to prosper.

Well it's February 4th today and last night as I logged out of EVE my wallet looked like this:

While only half of my goal it still feels good to have 1 Billion ISK in my wallet. More so it's feel good because most of it has been through passive methods of income. A lot of it came via P.I. and R&D agents with a little more coming from trade. The rest from Missions and mining while I tend to RL tasks. meaning I've not given away my life to the game for this ISK.

I also still bought stuff during this time and while only a few hundred Million worth of stuffz. It's was still good to be able to enjoy ISK during this time of saving. I've bought over 100MISK worth of skill books, fitted a RR mission Dominix worth ~80M ISK and 2 "throw away" 50M ISK PvE drakes for Incursion work. Likewise I've spent entire days mining ICE or Rocks for the alliance at little or no ISK gain during this time. So really this 1B ISK a month gain could be something I can potentially sustain. Kind of cool eh?

So what are the plans for the ISK? Right now honestly nothing as I still have 1B ISK to go to reach the target I set. However I'll do with it what I always do with my ISK. I'll invest it back into myself and my corporations. Adding some more BPOs to the inventory and perhaps buy a faction battleship for ZombiNutz to mission in. We are building a corporate Orca as well which will limit the need for people to use their personal orca for Alliance ops. I plan to add the BPO and all Sub part BPOs to the library ASAP thus adding the orca to the regular corporate charter.

All the same it's VERY easy to make ISK in EVE. It's even possible to add 1B ISK to your wallet in highsec working around the responsibilities of real life. You can also still have fun and buy toys whilst doing it. :)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Nothing in particular really but to the left is Wednesday from the adams family. I just like the it's xxx day of the week title these days. Life ticks on inside and outside of EVE. As I near my 37th birthday in the real world and 20M SP for both Zombie and SOB inside EVE. I am starting to feel old in many ways. Now don't get me wrong in thinking OLD is used here in a detrimental way. Age to me is am sign of wisdom and having a chance to developed some common sense. So getting OLD to me is not a bad thing, rather a good thing. Inside EVE older players are usually something to treat with a little respect.

The corp grows slowly with me just booting some 2 month inactive members and replacing them with some 4 year old 40M+ SP indy pilots. We are building some fun stuff too with ORCA BPOs now in the crop. and 4/7 sub BPOs in the alliance. Makes for some more profit from mining which is now done in a small fleet of hulks and an orca. So it takes less time to get the ore we need. Zombienutz is witling away at some leadership skills to make not only the Orca's mining bonus maxed, but also laying down the foundation of a solid fleet booster. Likewise SOB is now able to build capital bits and capital ships. he is also dangerously close to being able to dock a small highsec R&D POS to finally get free of the shackles of public labs. The Sisters are doing their thing and I am digging the new PI system.

The alliance goes well also with BTEK joining us reacently bringing me back into a circle of an alliance again with TheSarj, Samthefurious, and Astral Dominix once more. There are also plenty of solid indy type pilots in the other member corps. who I am starting to form good friendships with making those mining fleets ops more fun. It's easy to find a fleet to blitz level 4's and folks are always on doing something inside the alliance. It's hard to be lonely inside EVE these days. One of our member corps. is filled with really good people who have just had a horrid run of things. This week a new hire stole 4.5B ISK worth of POS and stuff from them in one night. I feel for them and the loss but it reminds me why I keep a tight lid on the HCSH cookie jar. Far too many folks inside EVE want to steal you stuff.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

In reading that it was EVOGANDAs birthday just now. It dawned on me that I’ve been blogging for over a year here at EVE SOB. I cannot boast some of the post numbers of those out there in the EVE blogging community but I am happy with my 124 posts to date.

How it all began:

Some time ago not long after I started to play EVE and I’d say right about when I created my second account. I also discovered the EVE blogging community. I was instantly drawn into this diverse group of people who devote a portion of their life to committing records of their EVE lives to text (and art). It was clear to me that I would enjoy EVE more and feel more part of the community if I blogged as well. As a result EVE SOB was born January 15th 2010.

What I had in mind when starting the blog:

It was simple at first being a classic blog that served as a journal of my time in EVE. I wanted to write down all my discoveries as they happened in EVE. I wanted to document the good and bad times as well as tie in some of my plans for the future inside EVE online.

Where we are today:

For the most part the blog is still just that: A journal of my life as ZombiNutz and Sonofbraben as they experience stuff in EVE. It also has some cross chatter inside the community via “me me” and the odd stab at the blog banter. I’ve also written a few informal beginners guide type posts. It has a semi monthly recap section as well that folks have seemed to enjoy.

Where it will go from here:

Well it will continue to be a journal and follow my exploits. Today those are not that thrilling with my return to carebearing for the while. I did just fly a jump clone out of provi in a pod without incident. I cannot tell you how lame it was to see the gate into lowsec from R3 so poorly camped. Not one bubble. Yeah I guess deep down there is a PvP player and a 0.0 dweller in me still. Who knows what this next year will bring? I hope you all keep reading and discover it as I do.

It's snowing outside and the kids are home from school. Another 5-10 inches of snow expected with 1/4 inch of ice on top. Excellent! It is on these days I am most glad to work from my home and not have to drive into the "office" an hour away. Like most Tuesdays to day begins with coffee and time with my wife and kids before I head down to my basement office. It's a chilly 54F as per usual and I flip on my trusty electric oil heater and soon the room is filled with warm air and will peek out around 75F. The cat is all ready camping the heater with his nose as far between the radiator sections as he can get without burning himself. The gently purring has become a familiar sound.

Next I press power buttons around the room bringing to life 4 LCD monitors, 3 computers, 2 keys boards, 2 mice, and a webcam. The work day begins with checking of the overnight emails to see what broke and how it was fixed. Then I pull up my task list and calendar to see what meetings are approaching and what I need to focus on today in the never ending swirl of corporate Information technology. It's right about now that EVE online is fired up and I start to go through similar activities. Check my mail, scan calendars, a quick o/ in a few chat channels, and then next comes the task list.

I typically start the day with a starting my 20 PI planets back up. Many clicks are involved in the process and I typically try not to talk to folks in game while it's done. At work in the real world I am checking daily reports have run, manually running and troubleshooting the data mining scripts for those who don't.

On this Tuesday however my day starts a little differently. See today is patch day and the release of Incursion 1.1.0 inside EVE. So rather than sitting down to click on extractors I am anxiously watching download and install bars. I am excited to see the new character creation systems and aware that it might impact my days work. So I get as many tasks done as I can while I watch the bars. I also know that PI changes in a big way with this patch and am excited to see how the new system can reduce the many thousand clicks a day I have endured. There are new pretty explosions and some new nav bar and contract system. Eve gate gets an over haul too.

I finish fixing a troublesome script as the last installer checks and replaces .dlls and other chunks of the game on my second client. I fire up the first client that is all downloaded and ready. I all ready know that I am not yet going to see the new goodies. As I accept the EULA I see the all too familiar "STATUS: NOT ACCEPTING CONNECTIONS" and thus begins the waiting for the CCP worker bee's to get the system checked out and ready for us to play. Some days this wait is short, other days it's the training length of Caldari frigate IV. So I go back to work and start into the structure and content of a technical document designed to teach internal IT staff how to navigate and administer Virtual Servers for off shore developers. All ready I am yearning for a break from this remedial but important task.

Today at the time of posting my two mains have portraits that look like this ZombiNutz on the left SonofBraben to the right:

Once the CCP bee's have buzzed there lot, we shall see what new faces and names we all have amongst the stars of New Eden. I am looking forward to rediscovering old friends with new faces.

Friday, January 14, 2011

It has been almost 2 weeks since I have been compelled to post. This makes me sad because I like to waffle on here as record of my life in EVE. I like to provide some thing for those brave few to visit here to read. However things are a steady stream of busy un-interesting things inside EVE of late and hence there are only so many ways you can write about this.

I am carebearing on the carebear ranch. Looking to hire more carebears to help with the carebear tasks. Hence my last post.

OK so what exactly am I doing on the ranch. I am building an Orca is what I am doing at the moment. Yes I all ready have an Orca that I bought all ready built. It's a lovely ship for organized carebear type events. However this Orca is for me to understand what it means to build an Orca and what profits can be made in the Orca building business. In short adding the Orca to the products that HCSH builds.

What this means is I bought a BPC for cheap and am buying all the sub component BPOs and forming a materials list and build time for Orcas. Then I am rating all this next to what they sell for on the open market. If the time invested makes for a worthy profit then woot we are building Orca.

This is actually the first time I am doing this at HCSH. Historically I've built ships to use them not sell them. This time with the Orca I am building them exclusively to sell at this point. I feel all grown up as a indy corp. all of a sudden.

I am also trying to pad my wallet at the same time. It's hard to hit a ISK goal when you need to spend small badgers full of it. Historically I've lived boke always investing all my capital back into the corps assets. This is still true but I've reduced the amount of investment and increased the ISK in the bank floor quite a bit. Means I am working hard at making ISK and not spending ISK until the floor has been first reached and then sufficient funds are raised to pay for the investments. It's about as fun as it sounds too. :(

Alliance life goes well. Lots of shared mining ops and good chatter about the channels. I host a weekly Alliance ICE op to fuel the shared POS farm. We have Alliance goals that we all contribute too. I like all the sister corporations and their members.

We actually have an alliance T1 frigate tourney coming up here at the end of the month. Should be fun to shoot each other and have some chuckles. I'll be entering ZombiNutz to the tourney in either a rifter, Tristan, or Merlin. Still monkeying with fits and such. Will post about the tourney after it happens.

Well that's about it for now. I have some ideas in the works for post series. I hope to be here more often with updates that are interesting. Until then fly safe. o/

Monday, January 3, 2011

The title pretty much sums up what this post is about. I have my doors open for new pilots, young or old, to come join the crew of select folks who carry the HCSH banner.

What is Healthcare for Space Hermits?We are a small corporation by design with a firm value placed on having fun and taking care of our own. We are primarily industry based and as such we mine stuff, refine stuff, and build stuff to sell to people for profit put VERY simply. We run missions, explore sites, poke out noses into worm holes, and even take vacations into LowSec for much needed PvP breaks to blow off steam.

HCSH is growing because our goals are growing. We are building bigger stuff these days, more high-tech stuff, and are part of an Alliance who can and will be building the BIGGEST stuff of all. This means we need pilots looking to become part of something bigger. The good news is that something bigger is also very aware of the need to take care of all its members.

We have an inactivity policy in place to promote an active corporation. We only require that you log into EVE and play the game to remain active. If you know you’re going to be away for some time a quick in game email is all it takes to be placed in “inactive” status and not removed from the corporation after 1 month of inactivity.

We have a 5% tax rate to pay the bills. We expect our members to treat each other and the alliance members with respect and courtesy. We are not pirates or grifers and tend to discourage such acts. We don’t like wars, but fight them should they be unavoidable.

What kind of CEO am I?I really hate this question. I don’t care for titles and politics that much. I like to log in and have fun while getting stuff done. Anyhow here goes:

I tend to direct people towards opportunities inside EVE and the corporation rather than demand or order folks around. I don’t like to be told how it is and assume most mature gamers are the same. I encourage and reward people who move themselves and the corporation forward choosing to foster a pilots own drive not provide “work” for them. I take care of my own like they are family. I’ll negotiate discounts\free replacements of lost ships with in our Alliance. I’ll split the cost of the next tier of ship with pilots who reach the next level in their fields. I’ve been known to drop PvP ships into hangers of industrial pilots with a note like “Let’s go trash some of what we build for fun!”

I have 4 pilots across 2 accounts with in the corporation ranging from PI/R&D mules to PvP focused pilots. Most days I’ll be logged in doing some manner of things in Empire or lowsec these days. I am always happy to lend a hand to folks in the corporation or alliance. I’ve been known to make 50 jump round trips to help folks with a Mission or help them mine\haul ore from a grav site. I spin up adhoc operations for ISK and host weekly alliance operations towards it’s goals. I play starting at 14:00 server time most days and can be on and off around the clock depending on what is going on.

Above all else I like to have fun and share my EVE time with friends. If EVE becomes too much like work then it’s time to mix it up and find new fun things to do. I do have goals inside the game and like to get them done. I believe to be able to help others you first need to have a sound grip on your own space within the game.

HCSH and the PIES alliance:

HCSH is a member of the PIES alliance of industrial minded corporations that covers Lonetrek and Sinq Laison regions today. It’s always expanding and is currently seeking new corporations to join our ranks with short term goals of member corporations is all 4 racial regions and a small foot hold in 0.0 space.

As CEO of HCSH I am a stake holder in this alliance and responsible for fostering it’s growth and prosperity. This means HCSH remains active with in the Alliance often hosting and driving operations that compliment the goals of the Alliance as a whole.

The alliance itself is formed to promote friendship and mutual growth. Its member corporations are mature EVE players who have a wealth of knowledge combined with excellent senses of humor. We all play for fun but know what needs to be done to keep the Alliance moving forward.

Interested?!?!

If yes, shoot an in game email to Sonofbraben or ZombiNutz to arrange for a meeting. Likewise drop into HCSH – Tavern in game chat channel and give us an o/.

About Me

This blog is my journal as record of my life stumbling about space grumbling at the wonder around me.
I once again find myself leading people. I started EVE looking for a break from 4 years of MMO people management. I wanted to just be another average joe. However folks tell me I am good at this CEO thingy. So here I am leading HCSH.